A Bittersweet Holiday

Insta – Morning of Service

A glimpse of my parish’s Morning of Service in conjunction with the Pope’s Jubilee Year of Mercy. Top left, clockwise: Room assignments, Information/Registration table, sample rosary bracelet (which was one of the projects), worship aid for our prayer service prior to the volunteering, Fr. J during the worship service, our volunteers at the service. In the center: Magnet for all participants. (c)2016

After months of planning, my parish’s Morning of Service was finally held on November 5, 2016. We had over two hundred fifty live bodies to work on projects for a variety of community organizations, both off-site and on-site at the parish. In addition, there were dozens more who donated items and money to complete the projects.

We will meet in January to discuss how things went (fabulously) and make preliminary plans for next year’s Service Day.

I was at the information table for the morning, and I will tell you that when people left they were just as happy as when they arrived. No complaints about the early day, smiles on faces throughout the day, all ages. It was wonderful to see it in real time how this affected the volunteers in such a positive way.

It was one of the most fulfilling days I have had the pleasure to spend, and I can’t wait to continue to offer ideas for the next one and participate.

Orange Crush

Wandering through the grocery store, I found this box of PopTarts. I immediately became melancholy thinking about.Denise and Tara, who doesn’t even know that Denise is dead. That was six episodes ago!

Anyway, I can find fandom anywhere.

Keep your eyes open and you can, too.

50-40 – Collections

I have always been a collector. I’m not quite at the hoarding stage yet, but it’s not that far off, so I need to be ever vigilant and aware so I don’t end up on the nighttime news when they come with a shovel.

Our whole family collects something or other. My oldest son collects fire department memorabilia and history, books and pictures. My husband and middle son collect comic books and action figures. My middle son also collects Lego. He loves to build them and display them. He also continues to play with them. My daughter collects clothes. She wants to be a fashion designer and she loves putting new outfits together and seeing how she can make something old new again.

In my basement, I have videotapes and newspaper articles, magazines that I wanted to keep forever. I have the newspaper when NY Yankee Thurman Munson died. I have magazines when Princess Diana was married and I saved the newspapers somewhere for President Obama’s inauguration.

I have a collection of pewter pieces, primarily on the medieval theme, but also groupings of griffins, my favorite animal. Yes, of course, it’s a real animal.

I collect some stamp sets and sheets, usually the ones that my kids would want to have when they’re older. I’ve showcased some of them on here recently.

I collect coins. Not anything really worth much, but just a remembrance of where I’ve been or gifts that I’ve been given. I’m not sure where they all are, but I have German marks and French francs. A shekel and a Scottish paper pound. My friend sent me New Zealand money from his home and my husband brought me coins from the Philippines when he was there for his work. I almost always have Canadian money on me somewhere. We just went over the border this past summer for a couple of days vacation.

I also collect Hufflepuffs. They are a rare find, so I’m pretty sure I’ve got everything sold in our local stores, including Hot Topic.

My biggest collection is my pins. I love pins. I buy them wherever I am, and I am sent them by frineds, although I usually have to ask. I have San Francisco and Las Vegas from a friend. I have a Hello Kitty from Japan and my son brought me an Eiffel Tower pin from Paris. He recently went to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and he brought me my newest pin from there commemorating the fire department. Another new pin is my 50th anniversary Star Trek pin that a friend got for me at a convention. I have loved Star Trek since I was a little girl, and I thought that since I was also turning 50 this year, I’d really like the pin. The picture below is what my jacket looks like currently, but I display my pins on corkboard and need to get a few more squares of it to get the rest of them on.

My collections remind me of things, whether they’re what’s depicted on the pins or they remind me of the person who gave it to me, or the adventure I had when I got the pin. That’s especially true of my Gettysburg Bike Week pin.

All of my collections remind me of who I am and the important things I’ve done and want to remember.

The pins currently on my jacket: from the top, clockwise: my RCIA cross, trio of crosses from the Shrine of the North American Martyrs, rainbow Pride, Gishwhes, safety pin, Niagara Falls, 9/11 Memorial, 50th anniversary Star Trek, Hufflepuff, Supernatural anti-possession symbol, Star Labs, Michonne and Daryl from The Walking Dead, Wales, Niagara Falls/Hard Rock Cafe, 9/11 Memorial larger version. (c)2016

Nachos

50-37 – Yankee Doodle

In honor of today being Election Day, I am sharing my photos of my old elementary school lunchbox. It ~~must have been a television show that I watched as a kid~~ *. It was probably on during the Bicentennial in 1976. I’ve always loved history, and was really pleased to find this vintage, metal lunchbox in my parents’ garage before we sold the house.

*After many minutes of googling and clicking useless links, I finally discovered that Yankee Doodles was a comic strip that ran from 1973 to 1977. Three artists were listed: DonKracke, Fred Martin, and Ben Templeton. (Information furnished from Keith Adams from an online q&a)

Fall in the Northeast

50-36 – Memorial Cardinal

My mother-in-law loved her backyard. She worked harder than anyone I know on her flowers. No special mixes or soil. Her fertilizer was some compost – egg shells and fruit peels. Every spring, bags and bags of dirt, but as I said, nothing special.

The front of the house looked nice, and inside she had a Christmas cactus that was pretty for the one week it bloomed, but the backyard was her special place. Gorgeous giant sunflowers grew along the back fence. She couldn’t wait to get rid of the mulberry tree that ruined everything around it. There was a crabapple tree that she hung windchimes and the occasional birdhouse on. It looked like a fairy playland.

When we visited in the spring, usually around Easter, we drove her to Home Depot for dirt. Pounds and pounds of dirt, and before we knew it, it was gone and she needed more, so off we’d go for a second trip to Home Depot. She didn’t drive, and she couldn’t carry that much on the bus.

She grew herbs and tomatoes, and we were sent home with dozens of them every spring.

After a while, the full garden became too much, and she began container gardening. It was unbelievable how nice the containers flourished. I’ve never seen containers grow so well. She had a green thumb, and passed it on to my husband who’s really great in our garden. He grew two pumpkins or gourds and we were all excited when we brought them into the house.

When we were visiting in June, she asked about her garden, so I took some pictures on my cell phone and brought them into the hospital to show her. She still hadn’t gotten the hang of any kind of technology; she got an air conditioner for the first summer in 2014 or ’15, but she was excited to see the pictures of the bright yellows and purples of her perennials that never disappointed her.

She died unexpectedly a few days later.

We drove down the following weekend for the memorial service. We had planned to take a few of the roots to bring some of her garden home with us. We’ll have to wait for spring to see how they’re doing. We might have to go back and retrieve a few more roots in the spring.

While I was in the bathroom getting ready for the service I noticed a bright, red bird through the window, outside in the backyard. A cardinal. He sat there long enough for me to get my cell phone and take a bunch of pictures including one that was mid-flight when it took off.

it seemed like an odd time for a single bird to show up.

Cardinals were my mother-in-law’s favorite bird.

50-34 – Stonehenge

I’ve been once. Very nearly thirty years ago. What is most amazing apart from the stones themselves and the sacred space itself is how much of the feelings remain with me after so many years away.

I’ve always had a thing for rocks. Pebbles and larger, colored and polished, rough, formations that can’t be moved no matter how hard you try. When I returnd to Wales in 2009, I touched the stones of castles and rock formations, and almost none gave me the feeling that I experienced at Stonehenge.

I was lucky when I went. You could still touch the stones and move in and out, around them and about. There were some ropes to keep you from sitting on the flat ones, and of course, they didn’t want you climbing, but just being there, surrounded by the cool plains air, the cold to the touch stones, gigantic, and not just tall but broad and sturdy.

The sun was setting. We were one of the last buses allowed in for the day, and I was very thankful. This was our only chance to visit, and this was one of the important places that I wanted to see. To touch. To feel. To be.

If you’ve never been to a place of great spirits, you can’t imagine the electricity coming off of not only the stones, but the ground below them. I’ve been to Gettysburg, and I imagine Standing Rock in North Dakota has the residual of all that has gone before it, but Stonehenge….Stonehenge is in an entirely other category; another world.

You almost don’t notice the other tourists. I was spellbound, moving from one monolith to the next, placing my hand, palm flat against the cold, rough edifice. I didn’t have to imagine what had gone before in this place; I could feel it: the heartbeat. The pulse, the pulsating of life, of forever.I never wanted to leave.

The sky dimmed and then darkened, the powerful stones becoming shadowed and dark against the darkening sky. I can remember leaving, sitting in the bus, looking out the window at the stones growing smaller as we ambled slowly away, getting further and further distant, and yet, they are still with me; within me.

There is magic there, so much that it is able to let a little bit leave with its visitors and keep them in touch with the pulse of the land, the stones, the past, and the future, and of course, whatever else we believe is out there, be it Druidic or Diety, Nature or Nurture, Spirit and Faith.

It’s taken thirty years to get this much down, and I still feel more wanting to bubble up, but not ready – I’m not ready to let it all out. I want to be selfish and keep it inside for me alone. It can’t be shared in a way that anyone else can feel what I feel. It’s too much to share so I’ve shared what I could.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

Griffins and Ginger Snaps

-I write, and I have a blog because of course I do-

photos